How to specify audio and video bitrate

Question

I have a mov file with the following media information: Stream 0 Type: Video Codec: H264-MPEG-4 AVC (part 10)avc1 Language: English Resolution: 1280x720 Frame rate: 24

Stream 1 Type: Audio Codec: MPEG AAC Audio (mp4a) Language: English Channels: Stereo Sample rate: 44100HZ

And I would like to use ffmpeg to convert that mov file to avi file.

I know i can specify audio and video bit rate (from this article http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8517

ffmpeg -i InputFile.mpg -ab 128 -b 1200 OutputFile.avi

But for my case, if i want to keep the original quality, what should be my audio and video bit rate?

Thank you.

Answer 1

ffmpeg -i input.mov -sameq -aq 1 output.avi

Note: I have found that -aq is ignored if the source audio is mp3, in which case you would just have to use -ab 128k or something similar.

Answer 2

I think that ffmpeg will generally try to match the bitrates of the input file if you don't specify the exact ones you want.